


You'll Never Know

by firstbreaths



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstbreaths/pseuds/firstbreaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is faced with telling his friends that he's been made prefect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Never Know

**Author's Note:**

> For the beautiful missgoalie75, who prompted this on tumblr! <3

“Moony!” Peter exclaims, leaning in a bump of the elbows that somehow ends up as a hug, before the four of them settle into their favourite booth at the Three Broomsticks, Remus and James on one side and Sirius and Peter on the other, Madam Rosmerta already passing them all a Butterbeer.

 

There’s the usual raucousness that comes when the four of them haven’t seen each other in a month or two; Remus appreciates being able to go home, enjoy a few months away from the sometimes suffocating atmosphere of Hogwarts, but there’s always things that can’t be said via post; the abandoned Muggle motorbike down the block that Sirius wants to borrow even though he has no clue how to drive it, Peter’s date with the cute Hufflepuff girl from the year below them, the pay-up from James’ bet with Sirius about the Chudley Cannons.

 

Remus refuses to take any part in adjudicating that one; he’s still suffering from the indignity of their dorm rooms having orange curtains for a week.

 

“So what’s up with you, Remus,” James asks, swallowing around a mouthful of Butterbeer, and right. His news. Best just to come out with it even as the nervousness settles deep in his stomach like a jagged-edge stone grinding away at him. His friends are way too good at figuring out when something’s up - he both loves it and hates it about them.

 

“I got prefect,” he says, hands curling around his glass as he forces himself to keep his voice steady and even. “McGonagall, ah, made me a prefect, I promise it’s not some kind of conspiracy to make you guys suddenly abide by Dumbledore’s beginning of term speech, I, uh, don’t know what she was thinking.”

 

Remus does, of course - he’s avoided enough detentions due to having to work on an essay a little longer than James or Sirius need to or Peter cares to, or because he’s been in the hospital wing an extra day beyond when that particular plan to antagonise Severus was initially scheduled for action, and he’s almost a little disappointed in the fact that she thinks he can rein his friends in. If she knew what he was letting them do, for him, had any suspicion about which students were keen enough to ‘get ahead’ on the sixth year work about Animagi - he probably wouldn’t change a thing, because it’s dangerous and illegal, sure, but James and Sirius aren’t stupid, and one of the things he both loves and hates most about being a werewolf is that he forgets everything that happens, over the full moon period, doesn’t have to come to terms with the ways in which the human and the animal in him intersect, only more like fault lines and less like puzzle pieces, power and weakness in a standoffish dance he almost wishes he could see for those moments of calm before the storm when he’s in control of his own instincts.  James and Sirius have done enough research about werewolves to know what they’re getting themselves - and Peter - into. They always do. And that’s McGonagall and Dumbledore shouldn’t have picked him - what can he do?

 

Another thing that textbooks don’t tell you about the condition of lycanthropy - it breeds self-doubt.

 

(It doesn’t, not really, and Remus knows better than to claim otherwise - but that doesn’t mean he won’t take the excuse, occasionally. Sometimes the weight of the world settles on his shoulders like an invisibility cloak, rippling out around him like he’s being submerged, and he’ll take the opportunity if it arises to just breathe).

 

He’s still clutching his cup a minute later, eyes focused on the grains of wood in the table when he hears Sirius laugh, and looks up slowly.

 

“Moony,” Sirius says, his own hands drumming on the tabletop, “listen to yourself. You’re a werewolf consorting with a bunch of soon to be Animagi, if James’ new theory about the toad in his back garden is right. You have a better grade in Muggle Studies than Evans.” James looks momentarily affronted, but they all know it’s true. “Your entire life is a conspiracy, and -” Sirius lowers his voice, and there’s a sudden tightening of his jaw, “having been home all summer with what passes for my parents, I think McGonagall’s going to have bigger things to deal with than just us trying to bewitch the Sorting Hat again.”

 

“Now that was a conspiracy,” Remus laughs, because it’s easier than thinking about the other things, about what being a werewolf means when it means everything and yet not really anything because he’s got his grades and his friends and the future shimmering on a horizon he keeps squinting into. “But you can’t pretend like this won’t have an impact; I’ll have to go to prefects’ meetings and avoid invitations to Slughorn’s parties and -”

 

“Bollocks,” James says, drowning the last of his drink before reaching out and thumping Remus on the shoulder  as they stand up. Remus shoots him a small, thankful smile, despite the fact that it hurt like buggery. “McGonagall’s a shrewd woman, Remus, shame on anyone who underestimates her. Having you as Prefect doesn’t mean we stop pulling pranks, it gives us an incentive to avoid tarnishing your reputation by not getting caught.” The corner of his mouth twists upwards in a teasing smile, one that Remus knows well; it’s late-spring Quidditch games and getting a particularly difficult spell right in Charms and the way he looks at Lily when she’s not looking back. “She gets all the fun of watching Filch figure out who managed to convince the third-floor portraits to scream you missed a spot in perfect harmony, and Gryffindor doesn’t lose any house points.”

 

Remus laughs at that, fingers clutching at the hem of his shirt, because he can just imagine it and -

 

“You’ll need to work on that one if you want the old and grumpy Merlin painting to get involved with that’, he says, downing the last of his Butterbeer. He sighs. “Thousands of years of magic and they still haven’t found a way to improve his picture of the back of his chocolate frog card, I’d be mad too.”

 

“Merlin hates Filch as much as we do,” Sirius says simply, shrugging his shoulders into his coat as they all begin to stand up, heading towards the door, “and besides, James is right - we need to be more subtle now. It’d make more sense for Merlin to grumble like this was a totally spontaneous, not a planned act at all. Wake the barmy old codger up for all I care.”

 

Remus just smiles around his laugh, because his friendship with the Marauders wasn’t planned, their reaction to his news certainly wasn’t planned and sometimes he forgets, in the way it’s all too easy to structure his life around phases of the moon, that there’s nothing wrong with a little self-doubt as long as you remember that there’s also light on the other side of the dawn; he continually doubts himself because he knows he can do better. He’s talented, he’s a prefect because he deserves to be and so he pushes himself between Remus and Peter as they walk out the door, says, “how about the fourth floor, instead? It’s got that little corridor off to the side so we can watch from there, and I’m fairly sure that Agrippa’s also got a vendetta against Filch thanks to that time he came a little too close with the brass polish.”

 

What was McGonagall thinking, indeed?

  
  



End file.
